


What country, friends, is this?

by TARDIS_stowaway



Series: Illyria [1]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, F/M, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Pete's World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-22
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:06:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TARDIS_stowaway/pseuds/TARDIS_stowaway
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Doomsday, Rose still runs for her life. One night she runs into someone she never expected to see again. Problem #1: It's hard to have a blissful reunion with someone who has never met you. Problem #2: A Nine from the universe where Rose Tyler was never born is bound to have some unresolved issues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Patience on a Monument

**Author's Note:**

> First story in my Illyria series.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose considers her life since separation from the Doctor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly introspection, so stick with it for the Doctor. Titles are taken from William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, which you should all read or watch.

_She sat like patience on a monument,  
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.iv_

 

 

Certain things remind me of him, sometimes almost more than I can stand. It’s not the big, obvious things: the aliens and whiz-bang technology I encounter at Torchwood, the zeppelins (zeppelins!) in the sky that tell me this is not my Earth, even the fact that my father is alive. These things are part of my everyday life now. If I thought of him every time I wouldn’t be able to function. Instead, I have stretched the cold white wall at Torchwood into my mind, keeping the Then out of the Now, making him only another memory of the universe I left behind. The stars are more troublesome. Everyone who looks at the glittering night sky tends to think about infinity, emptiness, the possibility of distant life, etc., etc., and I’m hardly immune to that. Worse, I look up and remember which ones I’ve visited with him. Except that was a parallel universe, and if I went to the other planets I might find them as changed as Earth. Anyway, I tend not to stare up at night unless I have the time for a potential cry, and I don’t indulge in that often. I make myself strong; it’s what he would have wanted.

 

The reminders that cause trouble are the little things that sneak up on me. Hand-holding, for starters. Mickey and I tried to make a relationship work for a while. We kissed, we hugged, we shoved each other playfully, sometimes (in the short period after I had managed to convince myself this wasn’t betraying the Doctor and before the relationship went sour) we made love, and it was all nice enough. But every time he tried to take my hand I was back in the basement, surrounded by murderous shop dummies, feeling the Doctor’s hand close around mine. My mind darted in sequence through every time the Doctor and I grasped hands in the midst of danger or wonder or simple pleasure in each other’s company. Mickey saw. We only lasted six months together, although he’s still my best mate and coworker at Torchwood. After all, he and my mother are the only people I can talk to about things like zeppelins and the other strange differences between this universe and home. (I read in the newspaper that Britney Spears is the leading operatic soprano in the world. She recently made the news for doing _Salome's_ Dance of the Seven Veils with an enormous snake on her shoulders. Also, thylacines, the weird carnivorous marsupials also called Tasmanian tigers or Tasmanian wolves, did not go extinct in the early 20th century as they did in my universe. They survive not only in their native Tasmania but in Britain, where a few captive animals got loose and started breeding. They make a major nuisance of themselves eating native wildlife and the occasional housecat.)

 

Other things that give me painful nostalgia: the word “fantastic.” Suits worn with trainers. Certain leather jackets. Christmas. “The Three Little Pigs” (a big Bad Wolf, you know). Bananas (I either cry or crack up, sometimes both). The name Cassandra (that time that Cassandra possessed my body and used it to kiss him…I wasn’t in control of my lips, but I remember what they felt. Hell yeah, I remember). 1940’s dancing music. 3D glasses. These or a thousand other cues can come at me out of the blue, and if I’m unlucky then the rest of the world grows insubstantial around me as I get lost in the past, no TARDIS to carry me home. No TARDIS to be my home.

 

Walls are worst. Most of the time they’re just ordinary structures that partition a building. Sometimes, however, I’ll lean on one in the wrong way, or see one with the light at a certain angle, and an ordinary wall becomes the barrier between worlds. I feel certain that on the other side of the wall are people going about their business, just like here but without zeppelins in the sky, cleaning up the damage the Cybermen did when they suddenly appeared just as we clean up the damage from Cybermen factories. I can almost see the slippery membrane of the dimensional boundary woven into the wood or stone or brick of the wall; just on the other side is the world where I was born. I press my ear against the wall, and it seems I almost hear a sound, like two hearts’ muffled beating on the other side. My Doctor. I have small scars on my hand from the first time I succeeded in punching through a wall in a panicked, pathetic attempt to cross over, but of course I only busted drywall, not the boundaries of the universe. That terrible wall is everywhere– every structure, mountain, tree, blade of grass, molecule of air, lover’s skin–and there it stays. I push and push, smash and slash, scream, cry, pray, wish and hope, meditate, sneak, cajole, and threaten, but the walls hold. Probably just as well, since an opening might well destroy both worlds. I should be glad I can’t see him, because he’s probably found another traveling partner, someone else to share the peril and thrill. She might wonder quietly who came before her, and he could tell her calmly. Surely he’s moved on with his life, just as you would think I have moved on with mine if you could not see through the white skull wall that separates my consciousness from this world.

 

All this sounds like a mopey wreck. I’m not. It’s not in my nature to be gloomy for long. For two days after the beach in Norway I wouldn’t get out of bed, but since then I’ve been getting on with life. I spend more time laughing than crying or even staring moodily into the distance. Having a real family complete with Dad and baby brother makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside in a domestic sort of way. My work at Torchwood is more fulfilling than I’d dreamed work could be back when I was at the shop. In three years here I’ve gotten good at it too. Well, the technical stuff is still just so much babble to me, although I have pretty good instincts for making alien tech work without understanding it in the slightest. I’ve only caused one major accidental explosion! I’m great at anything involving people: interviewing civilians who’ve seen something paranormal, peaceful contact with friendly aliens and fearless (well, less fearful than most humans) action when confronted with the bad sort. It keeps me busy. I can go days at a time without thinking of the Doctor at all, weeks without a painful episode. Sometimes I pretend that I’m a normal enough 24 year-old to try dating, even if none of those relationships seem to last very long. It’s just…everybody wonders sometimes if the best days of his or her life are already in the past. I more or less know they are. How do you top being young, beautiful, time-traveling, world-saving, and giddily (if silently) in love with the most wonderful man who ever lived? I could go mad with the regret of all I left unsaid until too late, but I choose sanity. God, I miss him.

 

The only unlikely memory cue that rarely hurts is running. My first story with the Doctor began with running. When I run, he could be right behind me or just out of sight in front. He could be watching from a distance, rooting me on. As long as I run, I can entertain the fantasies without giving them a chance to take me over, because most of me is focused on keeping my legs moving and lungs pumping while I evade whatever threat is behind me. Adrenaline and angst don’t coexist well. Sometimes I run just to stay fit and feel free from the walls, but thanks to the Torchwood work mostly I still run for my life. That much didn’t change when I began my solitary life. It certainly didn’t change the night that life ended.


	2. O mistress mine, where are you roaming?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Rose runs for her life with less success and more creepy amusement park rides than usual.

_O mistress mine, where are you roaming?  
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,  
That can sing both high and low:  
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;  
Journeys end in lovers meeting,  
Every wise man's son doth know. -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.iii_

 

 

I ran. Past closed fast food stands and darkened souvenir shops, I ran for my life. It had started out as a simple mission for Torchwood. Fly to New Jersey (first class! Not as spacious as TARDIS travel, but still quite luxurious), meet a dealer of rare and unusual objects who had contacted Torchwood. Examine a particular one of those objects and determine as best I could if it was, as he claimed, alien. If so, hand over a large amount of cash and transport the object back to HQ in London for further study. Not my specialty, but it was July and most everybody else was trying to take a vacation. It was supposed to be a simple and low-risk assignment.

 

The meeting took place in a nightclub, so I got to dress up like a real femme fatale spy in a little black dress with daring neckline. No heels, though; I wore flat sandals with sturdy straps. Fleeing for your life in stilettos, or even moderate-sized pumps, is a recipe for death and/or blisters. The alien artifact was olive green and bumpy with the general shape of a gun, complete with trigger. However, the barrel was wide and flat like it shot out something flat, perhaps those ninja star things. Or possibly pancakes. My instruments said it was alien, but couldn’t figure out what the hell it was for. I passed over the cash and was about to stick the gun/pancake maker/thingy in my handbag when the club erupted in screaming. I saw the torso of a bulky man wearing a dark suit and bowler hat entering the room. Instead of legs, his torso emerged from the back end of what appeared to be a giant green slug. Leaving a trail of mucus as he entered the club, the slug-man roared:

 

“Give me my property!” He pointed straight at me, completely dooming my attempts to edge out the back door quietly. He picked a martini glass off a table and threw it against a wall to emphasize his point.

 

“Calm down and tell me why you want it,” I said. Creepy as he looked, he could be a decent guy who’d had his…whatever it was stolen and quite rightly wanted it back.

 

“I want you to hand it over NOW because I might get my shirt dirty if I have to kill everyone in this room and feast upon their eyeballs before I pry it from your dead hands!” He made this new point by picking up a woman and throwing her against the wall as easily as he’d thrown the glass. I still had no idea what the thingy was or whether it really belonged to him, but it seemed like a poor idea to give an alien with that sort of temperament so much as a spoon. With that eyeball comment, especially not a spoon. I turned and sprinted out the back door. The slug-man shoved people violently aside and followed.

 

Across the street, three blocks, turn right, two blocks, turn left, next right, four more blocks and into an alley I ran. I was gradually outdistancing the slug man, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t seen me turn down the alleyway. Just to be sure, I climbed over the chain link fence at the end of the alley and hid behind a dumpster on the other side to catch my breath. No way he could climb with that body. Just as I started to relax, I heard a soft squelching sound growing louder, than his voice, soft now but just as menacing.

 

“Run all you like, little girl. I can follow your scent trail across the ocean if need be. Or you could give up now, and I’ll make your death quick.” A moment of silence followed, then a tremendous metallic screech. I looked around the dumpster to see the slug man ripping the chain link fence apart. Right. Time to run again.

 

Soon I was in the touristy district near the beach where I began this story. Nothing was open this time of night, and the streets were empty except for a few teenagers smoking and doing skateboard tricks. I had no idea where to find a safe spot. The slug man was still well behind me, but I was developing a stitch in my side, and he seemed to be gaining slightly. I needed an idea. Slug-man…salt kills slugs…should I find a grocery store, break in, and use their salt to make an uncrossable line across the road behind me? Bad plan. He’d almost certainly find some way to sweep it away. The ocean! That was full of salt. I’d lure him down to the beach. I turned in the direction of the sound of waves.

 

Under my feet, the ground changed from pavement to wooden boards. I scarcely noticed. I wished the Doctor was there to take my hand and pull my leaden legs along, but I also wished I had a motorcycle. Well, I’d come out of more dangerous chases alive before now. I passed a carousel, a kid-sized roller coaster, a tilt-a-whirl, and other rides. Great. Amusement parks always kind of gave me the creeps. I ran, until suddenly there was nowhere left to run.

 

Right in front of me was a railing, and far below that the ocean. I had run onto a pier, and there was no way off but the way I came. Large signs warned against diving, and a quick glance over the edge showed plenty of big rocks to support that sign. Down near the tip of the pier, there was nothing except the rides and a worn ticket booth, nothing substantial enough to offer me any protection from that sort of strength. If he spoke truly about his sense of smell, hiding would be useless. My only option was to run back down the pier straight past him. It was wide enough that I should be able to stay out of his arm reach. Hopefully. I decided that it would be just as easy to pass him at this end as nearer the opening, so I ducked behind the ticket booth to catch my breath.

 

The booth was of the stand-alone variety, large enough for two attendants inside if they were on really good terms with each other. It was faded white with yellow trim and a sign near the top saying “TICKETS” in red letters, surrounded by unlit bulbs. The window on the front was blocked with a metal grate over the glass and curtains inside. I tried the door on the back, just in case there was something useful inside, but it was locked. Leaning against the door and panting, I pulled out my mobile and tried to guess whether any of the Torchwood agents in America were likely to be able to help me and whether I’d be able to complete the call before my pursuer got close enough that I had to run again. I wasn’t in a state to talk and run at the same time.

 

As I started to dial, I heard a terrible crash. Peeking around, I saw that the Ferris wheel was toppling, coming down right across the pier. The slug-man stood (if you can call it standing without legs) brushing his hands off on my side of the wheel; the way off the pier was on the other side. No way I’d be able to run past him and climb over that mess of metal quick enough. I put the phone back in my bag.

 

“Nowhere to run, little girl. No one to hear you scream. Also, if you’re thinking of throwing my toy into the sea, rest assured that it will still work when I fish it out, but I will guarantee you a particularly unpleasant death if you make me go to that trouble.” His speech was slightly indistinct, almost gurgly, but the danger was quite clear. Time to get desperate. I darted around the ticket booth, pointing the mysterious object at him, and pulled the trigger. I winced as I fired, half expecting the object to explode or something similarly dangerous. Aside from a faint clicking sound from the thingy, absolutely nothing happened to either of us. The slug-man laughed.

 

“Little children shouldn’t play with toys they can’t work,” he said, slithering towards me at a leisurely pace. I went back around the ticket booth and slumped. I didn’t know how to get away, and I had no weapons with me aside from maybe the mystery thingy. I supposed I could beat it off with my handbag (contents: one PDA modified by Torchwood to scan alien technology, lipstick, mascara, blush, wallet, mobile phone, passport, tissues, two pens, hair brush, tampons, napkin with scribbled directions to the night club, three napkins with phone numbers of nice young men I never intended to call back, lots of crumpled receipts, breath mints, banana. Hey, they had extras at the hotel breakfast, and I get hungry at odd times.) No good. I bit my lip and wished for the Doctor. He could improvise his way out of anything. Even those times we thought we were going to die were better than this because we were together. I felt sick to my stomach, and my chest hurt.

 

That chest pain was strange, concentrated at a single point rather than the broad ache of tired lungs. I touched my hand to my chest as my heart beat a wild samba. The pain was coming from where the TARDIS key touched my flesh. I pulled on the necklace that I wore every day to draw it out of my dress. The TARDIS key–the only tangible souvenir of the Doctor that came with me to this parallel world–was hot as a parking lot in July and glowing with a faint golden light. I stared; I forgot to breathe. The squelching sound of the slug-man’s approach was very close now, but I could feel warmth emanating from the wooden door of the ticket booth against my back. I spun, and with shaking fingers I fit the key into the lock. The key turned. _Am I saved at last?, _ I thought, not really thinking of escape from the slug-man at all. I opened the door and stepped through.


	3. Trip No Further, Pretty Sweeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a certain Time Lord finally shows his big-eared head but is not at all who he seems whilst Miss Tyler has some explaining to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, the opening Twelfth Night quote is the same as for chapter 2. I took the titles from different lines but wanted y'all to see the full verse each time.

_O mistress mine, where are you roaming?  
O, stay and hear; your true love's coming,  
That can sing both high and low:  
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;  
Journeys end in lovers meeting,  
Every wise man's son doth know. -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.iii _

 

 

 

Inside the ticket booth was a soaring space full of light and shadows, crossed by elegant struts, cluttered with wires and mysterious buttons. Anyone else would have thought it utterly alien. I did once. Now I felt a delightful release of tension throughout my body like when I was a child in my mother’s embrace. Whatever its outside, this was the TARDIS, and I was home. A lanky figure I thought I’d never see again lifted its head from a tangle of wires and said:

 

“Who the hell are you?”

 

My brain was so overwhelmed with shock and joy that his words did not immediately register. _He came back for me. _ The thought was too large, too difficult to process, and too precious to tolerate any others.

 

“Doctor!” I breathed, wanting more than anything to run and fling my arms around him but afraid that if I moved the dream would fall apart. He scrunched up his eyebrows and gave me an intensely puzzled and not entirely pleased look. At that instant two very important pieces of information simultaneously jumped up and grabbed my consciousness:

 

1) Somehow, he had no idea who I was.

 

2) The person to whom I spoke bore the Doctor’s familiar features alright, but not the expected set of features. He had big ears and a prominent nose, angular cheekbones, very short hair, and he wore a black leather jacket. It was the Doctor as I first met him, before his regeneration.

 

“How do you know who I am?” he asked, advancing on me. (That accent. “Lots of planets have a north!” he told me long ago, and once again I heard the north of a vanished world in his voice.)

 

“What happened to you?” I asked, my voice rising in panic.

 

“How did you get in here?” he questioned. This I could answer.

 

“You gave me a key!” I said, holding it up. He looked more perplexed than ever.

 

“No I didn’t!” he said, baffled as ever and now sounding slightly angry. He strode up snatched the key away from me, running his fingers over it. “Although the evidence seems to be against me. No matter. You don’t need a key to get out. Bye now!” He gave a little wave and a tiny shove towards the door. The gears in my brain were turning furiously. Had something happened to wipe his memory and send him back to a previous form? I didn’t think that was possible, but then I had no idea he could change bodies until he did it.

 

“If you send me out there you’ll kill me!” I practically shouted. “I’m being chased by some sort of alien. I don’t recognize it.” I hoped the Doctor could see the pleading in my eyes. He was always a sucker for the big, frightened eyes. He dashed to the monitor and hit a few buttons to bring up the image of what was happening right outside the TARDIS door. The slug man, looking quite enraged, was beating at the door with a large hunk of metal from the Ferris wheel.

 

“You’ve got a Yorplin after you? How exciting! He’s a _long_ way from home, and looks rather unhappy about something. Well, if you won’t be leaving yet, we have plenty of time to get back to the question of who you are and what you’re doing in my ship.” He folded his arms and stared at me. I felt those blue eyes bore into me, relentless as a glacier. _Think, Rose._ He was a time traveler. He could have been alive for centuries since I’d seen him last, journeying with a hundred other people, so many he’d forgotten me. (A sick knot formed in my stomach at that thought, but I pushed it down). Ignore the body change for now. I just needed to remind him who I was.

 

“I’m Rose. Rose Tyler,” I pleaded. There was not a trace of recognition in his gaze. My eyes grew blurry with upwelling tears. I had daydreamed of reunion with the Doctor a hundred thousand times in a hundred thousand ways, but never once had it occurred to me that he wouldn’t recognize me. The few feet between us seemed as uncrossable as the wall between dimensions. Dimensions! I laughed aloud with a sudden joyous epiphany. The Doctor didn’t recognize me because he’d never met me! This Doctor was native to my present dimension, just like zeppelins and the Pete Tyler who lived and grew rich. He had never met me because I’d never been born here. Just like my mum and Mickey/Rickey, there must be a Doctor in each parallel world.

 

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at my sudden laughter, but said nothing. My mirth vanished quickly. My Doctor was as distant as ever. Mickey from my home and Ricky from this one had not had quite the same personality. This fellow looked and sounded just like the Doctor as I once knew him, but I had no idea how he would act. And he still had no idea who I was. Right. How on earth did I go about explaining this so I didn’t sound like a total nutter? _Hi, I’m from another dimension, where I used to travel with the you that lives there. We saved the universe together lots of times. Mind if I move back into my room? Oh, by the way, I love you more than I could say if I talked with the speed of your next regeneration for a hundred years!_ Bad idea.

 

“I’m a long way from home too,” I said for a start.

 

“Well, that’s obvious. London, by the sounds of it. Why you’re on the Jersey shore playing tag with a Yorplin is an interesting question, but not nearly as interesting as how you got a key to my ship.” He smiled as he spoke, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

 

“It’s more complicated than that, and you know it, Doctor,” I murmured. With a flash of boldness, I closed the distance between us, standing close enough I had to tilt my head to look him in the eye. “I’m from London sure enough, but I’ve traveled much farther than just across the pond. Not as far as you, Time Lord,” I said, reaching out to take his hand, “but farther than anyone else on this planet.” He gave me a long appraising look (keeping hold of my hand, I was pleased to note), then dashed across the room (leaving my hand and me behind). He threw open one of the TARDIS’s innumerable storage compartments and started rooting through it, heedlessly scattering odds and ends from dozens of worlds across the floor. At last he found what he wanted and stood up.

 

The Doctor was wearing 3D glasses. I smiled. It really couldn’t be helped; he looked if possible even sillier and more adorably dorky in them in this body than in his post-regeneration one. They emphasized his sail-like ears. For the first time since I’d entered the TARDIS, he too broke into that huge grin I liked so much, including his eyes under their goofy glasses. It was the grin he gave upon discovering some novel and interesting forms of trouble to get in rather than a grin for recognizing a friend, but it was a start.

 

“There’s void stuff all over you. You’re from another dimension!” he exclaimed. I waggled my eyebrows at him.

 

“No shit, Sherlock.”

 

“Holmes can’t hold a candle to me. I know, I won 10 quid off a bet with him,” he said, circling around to see all angles of me, “You knew I’d be smart enough to figure out your origins, you know my name, and you’ve got a TARDIS key. You must have known an alternate me in that dimension. I didn’t think there were any alternates of me, but it makes more sense than any other explanation. Am I right?”

 

“As usual!” I said, smiling harder than ever. He got so pleased when he solved a puzzle. I was glad to note that I was right about both his ability to put the pieces together and the positive effect it had on him. (Did he say he’d won a bet with Sherlock Holmes? Holmes is fictional! At least he was fictional in my universe. Here, who knows.)

 

“Well, I’m not very impressed with your me, letting you nearly get killed by a Yorplin. Also, what are you doing in this dimension in the first place? I–the I you came with–should have realized how fragile the fabric of reality is around this planet and this time. Why, just three years ago the whole thing nearly collapsed. A hole between dimensions puts the universe at risk. We’ve got to get you back to the other me and get you both out of here so we can patch that hole.” He whipped the 3D glasses off and started flipping switches on the TARDIS controls. My smile fled my face.

 

“He’s gone,” I said woodenly. “There’s no hole between dimensions any more. We had to close it. He’s on that side, the side we came from, and I’m on this one. I haven’t seen you, er, him for three years.” I stared at the floor, vaguely noticing that it needed to be swept in a major way but only really seeing that cursed white wall.

 

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said simply. He meant it, I could tell. I looked up at him, deciding to switch the topic slightly before I made my mascara run.

 

“’It’s alright. I’m sorry for breaking in on you. When the key got warm beside of the ticket booth, I just assumed that the chameleon circuits were finally working again and let myself in without thinking.”

 

“Nah, she’s been a ticket booth for centuries over here. I think I might pardon your rude entrance on account of your slimy friend out there,” he replied. He glanced at the mysterious object, dangling loosely from my hand. “That why it’s chasing you?” I nodded and briefly explained how I got it and my utter ignorance of what it did. He raised an eyebrow when I mentioned that I worked for Torchwood but made no comment, simply holding out his hands when I was done. I handed over the thingy. He fingered it, ran the sonic screwdriver over it, and beamed.

 

“Rose from another dimension, you have yourself quite a piece of contraband! This little thing is banned in five galaxies, and the rest haven’t banned it only because they haven’t heard of it yet. It’s a Yorplinish hypercamera.”

 

“That Yorplin wants to eat my eyeballs for a _camera_?”

 

“Not an ordinary camera. Loaded with the proper film, a Yorplinish hypercamera is one of the most dreadful short-range weapons ever invented. You say that thing threatened you and numerous civilians?”

 

“Yeah. So what’s so bad about it?” I asked. The Doctor set the hypercamera down and started rummaging around in his jacket pockets.

 

“You know how some low-technology civilizations believe that cameras steal your soul?” He pulled out a simple black wallet and removed the blank piece of paper from it. I nodded as he fed the paper into the slot on the camera.

 

“This one really does,” he announced. Before I could reply he punched a few TARDIS buttons, strode over to the door and flung it open, revealing a very grouchy looking Yorplin. Its bowler hat was gone, revealing green antennae sticking out of its hair.

 

“Were you planning on enslaving this planet, or just taking the hypercamera and heading out to enslave more prosperous worlds?” the Doctor asked it, all icy calm. He leaned against the doorway so the hand holding the hypercamera was out of view.

 

“Filthy thieves!” the Yorplin roared, swinging his enormous metal club at the Doctor. It rebounded off thin air, nearly whacking the slug-man in the face.

 

“I’ve set up a force field across the door. Since you’re laying claim to a hypercamera, a weapon strictly forbidden under section 29 of the Shadow Proclamation, I felt it unlikely you would consent to the peaceful audience terms of convention 15. Now, leave this planet. Leave and never return. This is your only warning.”

 

“Leave? Leave a planet so full of riches with nobody claiming them but defenseless apes? I don’t need the hypercamera to conquer it. However, I want it the hypercamera anyway. You’re going to give it to me, because I have a force field penetrating blaster!” the Yorplin growled, pulling a blast pistol out of his jacket. The Doctor gave him a mock-innocent look.

 

“What, you mean this hypercamera?” he said, pointing it and pulling the trigger. A white light flashed, and the Yorplin slumped to the ground. The piece of paper slid out of the slot in the hypercamera. The Doctor took the paper and began shaking it.

 

“You just stole his _soul_?” I asked, shocked. A small part of me was amused that the instinct to shake Polaroid pictures apparently applied to Time Lords.

 

“More or less. The hypercamera captures the energy print of the victim’s consciousness and transfers it onto a piece of psychic paper. Look!” I took the paper from him, ignoring the tingle of excitement when our fingertips brushed. The image on the psychic paper was resolving into a photo of the Yorplin, which wouldn’t have been unusual if it weren’t for the fact that the Yorplin was moving around in the photo, banging on the edges of the paper as if they were walls. It was like a twisted version of a wizard photo in a Harry Potter book.

 

“The consciousness is trapped in the paper,” the Doctor explained, “but the body keeps on living. With a bit of training it can perform simple physical tasks, but it will never have another complex thought or emotion. Nice way to get a lot of disposable slaves.”

 

“What are we going to do with him?” I inquired, watching the two-dimensional slug-man shout inaudibly.

 

“Hadn’t thought that far yet,” replied the Doctor, who had started dismantling the hypercamera with the sonic screwdriver. This Doctor seemed to have no happy medium between the stare that seemed to strip my mind naked and total refusal to look at me.

 

“We can’t just leave him soulless! “

 

“It’s what he was trying to do to your species.”

 

“That doesn’t make it right for us to do it! Besides, his body is going to attract attention, even in New Jersey.”

 

The Doctor, who had finished disassembling the hypercamera into about a zillion little pieces, looked up at me with what might have been an impressed look. I felt a faint warmth rushing to my cheeks. As hard as I’d tried to remember him, my memories had not quite carried the full intensity of his stare.

 

“Right you are. All it takes to return the soul to the body is to stick the paper in the body’s mouth and let it dissolve. I’ll go dump this lump of slime on his home planet and give his soul back as I leave.”

 

“Hold on there. _‘I’ll_ go,’ you say. What about me?”

 

“You go back to London and get on with your life. Eat your beans on toast, watch the telly, maybe kiss a cute boy. Tell Torchwood you met me if you must; they’ll never track me down. Take this key back and keep on looking for the Doctor you know. Maybe _he_ can afford tag-alongs.” His tone was dark, bitter, and cold like a pot of coffee made far too strong and abandoned on the counter. As the Doctor spoke, he took my hand and put my TARDIS key back in my palm. My innards did a gymnastics act as my heart rose into my throat and my stomach dropped to my toes. _I will not be abandoned before you even know me,_ I thought, steeling myself. I twisted my fingers around so they intertwined with his, the key between our hands.

 

“No. I don’t know how to cross dimensions, and if I did I might destroy the world. I would give anything to see the Doctor–my first Doctor–again, but the world is not mine to give. I want a chance to meet you, o stranger with a familiar face. Besides, it looks like the place could do with a bit of cleaning,” I gestured with my free hand at the dust, hypercamera parts, candy wrappers from a dozen worlds, loose wires, a box from New New York Pizza 2 Go, and other detritus. “I’m guessing you don’t have anyone else with you.”

 

“Not for a long while, and it’s staying that way. I travel alone,” he declared with finality. Well, I had worn him down from that tone of voice before. It was time for a side attack.

 

“What if that Yorplin wasn’t acting alone? I need to know more about that species so Torchwood can defend against them.” As I spoke about business in the most level tone I could manage, I started rubbing my thumb in small soft circles on the back of his hand. “Just this errand, then we’ll talk over drinks, swap some intelligence and stories. See whether you should be sending me away so hastily and whether I should be so quick to hop on board. “

 

“Humans. Everything’s an excuse for alcohol.” He sounded exasperated. Excellent– exasperation usually came right before he relented. This was easier than I’d feared.

 

“You’re full of it! Lots of things we do aren’t about alcohol at all. Some of them are all about chocolate!” I teased, adding mentally, _or sex. No, Rose, don’t even think of giving in to that urge to jump his bones. No need to make him think I’m a transdimensional tramp._ The corner of his mouth twitched at my remark.

 

“Oh, all right. One trip to Yorp, that’s the Yorplin’s homeworld, one drink–I think we’ll move off to another planet for that one, since Yorp vodka will accomplish more or less the same effect as the hypercamera but with much more vomit afterwards. That’s it. Now, you earn your keep by helping me move your pal inside. I’ll take the torso, you grab the tail.” He pushed away my hand, leaving me the key.

 

“Why do I get the slimy end?” I grumbled. I exited the TARDIS, stepping over the unconscious alien. I froze. My eyes had just alighted on a billboard I hadn’t noticed when I was out here about to die: Bad Wolf Haunted House. The Doctor must have noticed how I suddenly stiffened. Perhaps I even gasped.

 

“What is it?” he asked, peering past me.

 

“Bad Wolf,” I murmured.

 

“Does that mean something to you?” he asked, honestly confused.

 

“Probably not here,” I muttered, trying to regain my composure as I bent down and tried to lift the gooey slug end of the Yorplin. My mind churned with conflicting emotions. Hope shone golden, because those words had followed my first Doctor and me across the universe. It was a symbol of our partnership, suggesting that I might get to stay with this Doctor after all. Fear dug its claws into my gut, because Bad Wolf had come about as a way for me to save the Doctor (and, incidentally, the rest of the universe) from a Dalek invasion. Were the Daleks coming in this universe too? Would the Doctor and I still manage to survive? We’d come so close to dying…his body DID die, and so did Jack, though in typical Jack manner he refused to abide by social conventions like staying dead. Cynicism muttered in my ear that this might just be an echo originating in my home universe, utterly meaningless in present context. It could even be genuine coincidence, although with the Doctor nearby that seemed unlikely. Whatever the meaning or lack thereof, I could do nothing now.

 

 

As I heaved the disgusting bulk of the Yorplin into the ticket booth TARDIS, I almost wanted to thank it. Had it not been for the Yorplin’s murderous rage, I would be watching the zeppelins from the window of my hotel room, safe and very alone. Closing the door, I looked for something to wipe off the slime other than my cute black dress. Not wanting to spread the gross slime onto everything I touched, I gave up and had to ask the Doctor for a rag.

 

“Do you honestly mean to tell me,” he said in mock disbelief, “that you’re trying to hitchhike across space and time without your towel?”

 

“C’mon, you. I’m sure I’m not the first you’ve picked up without some necessities in tow.

 

“Well, there was one lady I took aboard years ago who was wearing a huge, floppy swashbuckling sort of hat, a swordbelt, and not a stitch else…”

 

“Besides,” I interrupted before he could go any farther down that particular memory lane, “you can’t say I’m totally unprepared. I have a banana!” I brandished the fruit at him, causing his eyebrow to shoot up.

 

“I like a girl who knows how to handle a banana. Excellent source of potassium!” he exclaimed. I snorted. Some things never changed.


	4. Secret as Maidenhead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which something is revealed, lots of chocolate fails to prevent the exchange of harsh words, and the situation gets sticky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When reading the chapter title, focus on 'secret' rather than 'maidenhead.' Minds out of the gutter, folks.

_What I am, and what I  
would, are as secret as maidenhead; to your ears,  
divinity, to any other's, profanation. -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night I.v. _

 

 

Nothing could compare with the bliss of traveling in the TARDIS with the Doctor again, but this chocolate was coming pretty close. I closed my eyes and moaned slightly.

 

“I don’t think anything this good would be legal on Earth, at least not to enjoy in public.” I quipped. The corners of the Doctor’s mouth twitched slightly, but he was too busy with a huge bite of chocolate cake to respond verbally.

 

He had taken my hint about chocolate quite literally and brought us to a restaurant on Laisha, a planet popular among fiftieth-century tourists. Laisha was scenic enough with tightly folded mountains shrouded in cloud forest, but the tourists came for the chocolate, or more precisely the chocolaisha. Species from different planets can almost never hybridize–even if they looked similar, there were usually far too many differences in the basic chemistry of cellular function–but nobody bothered to tell that to cocoa bushes brought by human colonists and a certain native shrub. The serendipitous hybrid shrub inherited from cocoa the beans that could be processed into a substance delectable to humans and from its Laishan side a refusal to grow in anything other than the understory of mature wild forest and mild intoxicating properties. Chocolaisha was, I discovered, a lush symphony of subtle flavors, some like raspberries and almonds but most with no descriptive words in English, combined with an alcohol-like slight buzz. The Doctor and I sat across from each other in a booth in a luxurious restaurant entirely devoted to chocolaisha, which was possibly the best idea for a dining experience in the known universe. He’d passed the time waiting for our order to arrive discoursing on the planet’s history and telling humorous stories about his last visit here, which seemed to involve the continental chief’s daughter following the Doctor around like a puppy, nearly getting herself killed numerous times before the Doctor finally got her settled with an appropriate suitor. As stories went it was well-told and fun, but as hints went it was neither subtle nor effective. I decided to play oblivious, which was not hard to do once the chocolaisa arrived and impaired my awareness of everything outside of the heaven in my mouth.

 

“I’d be chased by Yorplins every day if every chase ended with ended with this,” I said, raising my mug of hot chocolaisha. “To the TARDIS, enabler of my chocoholic ways!” The Doctor raised his mug and toasted back.

 

“To the TARDIS! Well, I’m glad to see you’ll be returning to Earth a happy woman,” he said. A stranger would have thought him cheerful, but I could read the little cues that bespoke grim purpose. This incarnation was always that way, like a little babbling brook of humor, manic energy, and jaunty heroism over the hard, jagged rocks of past pain and sense of separation. I suspected I was one of very few who knew that underneath that bedrock was an underground river of his great heart (well, hearts) flowing with vast love and endless hope. Sometimes I’m not even sure he knew it was there.

 

Torchwood enrolled me in university–if nothing else, being a student was a good cover for my secretive real job–and my literature classes have sparked a new tendency towards figurative language. I wondered if my Doctor would be proud or if he’d think I’d turned into a pretentious prat.

 

“Not so fast there! I have no intention of going to Earth just yet. There’s still so much I want to see. Barcelona–the planet, not the city. The banana groves of Villengard.”

 

“All that’s on Villengard is a weapons factory,” he said, slightly befuddled.

 

“Oh, you mean you haven’t visited it yet in this reality? Did I just cause a paradox? Oops!” I squeaked.

 

“You’re referring to an event in a parallel universe, not a different time in this same universe. No paradoxes there. You still can’t come with me.”

 

“If you are the slightest bit like your counterpart in my universe, you usually travel with somebody else. Someone to keep you excited about all the mortal peril and saving the world. Someone to help fly the TARDIS.”

 

“I can fly the TARDIS alone, thank you very much!” he huffed. He was obviously right; it was also true that when my fingers had touched the TARDIS’s controls she had made a sound curiously reminiscent of a purr. I’d felt a strange tickle in my mind, a flash of memory of ripping open the console to look into the heart of the TARDIS that time I took the time vortex into myself, and then a sense of recognition and acceptance. The TARDIS at least wanted me aboard. The Doctor had to know that, but he wasn’t done chasing me off: “Look, I used to travel with company. The TARDIS was a parade of bright young women, men, and other-gendered sentient beings. Once I even had a robot dog. But things changed. I changed.”

 

“You mean regeneration? I know about that. You’re still the same Doctor in the ways that matter.” He looked slightly startled by my knowledge, but recovered quickly.

 

“More than that. Rose, this is my ninth body. The first eight were fine with companionship, and mostly took pretty good care of those companions, but this time is different. After the…I mean, after I regenerated, I tried to bring people along. It doesn’t work. If I don’t drive them off quickly, they die.” My mind reeled. _Ninth_ body? Was it the same in my universe? I knew that the body I first me wasn’t his first (he’d implied that he’d regenerated in the Time War, and after meeting Sarah Jane I made him show me a picture of what he looked like for her. Then I spent the next week trying to convince him to wear the outrageously long scarf again. Eventually he got the scarf out just long enough to use it to tie me to a chair until I promised to drop the subject). Still, having more or less died and changed bodies nine times made him seem even older than the fact that he was 900. He continued:

 

“Let me tell you about all the people who have traveled with this body. Isobelle was a Scottish noblewoman whose husband was killed by a werewolf that was trying to get Queen Victoria. She–Isobelle, not the Queen–was with me five months before being burned at the stake on Gibrup Six. Trin was from Betelgeuse. He stayed almost a month before getting off smack in the middle of Earth’s Trojan War and refusing to talk to me even long enough to be taken home. I deserved it. Mellata was a maid for Helen of Troy I picked up as a replacement. It was about a month and a half before her memory was wiped so completely she didn’t even remember how to speak or walk. Cathica was a journalist from your distant future. She only lasted a week until she was stung by an alien insect and swelled up to twice her normal size before dying. Being in a bit of a pessimistic state of mind at that point, I went five billion years in your future to watch the Earth blow up. I met a sentient tree named Jabe. She was extraordinary–brilliant and brave and understanding. We had nearly a year together before being captured on the moon of Drith. They flayed the bark off her living body and made me watch. Stay away from me, Rose Tyler. It’s not safe to expose yourself to the heart of a storm. Don’t get me wrong, I’m great at saving the universe, but everything smaller that I love perishes.” His voice was not loud, but I had seldom heard him speak with such force and never with such bleak despair. The gruesome pictures of just what could befall those who traveled with him (several of them people I’d met in my universe, people whose deaths grieved me) were rather disconcerting, but I had accepted the possibility of death long ago. The horrible deaths bothered me less than the darkness in him. I wanted badly to comfort him and embrace him, but the table was between us and his body language invited touch about as much as a porcupine. All I could do was mutter something about being so sorry. His eyes burned cold like dry ice against my skin; I couldn’t meet them.

 

I turned my attention to his hands, which had his edge of the table in a vice grip. The right one bore a scar I didn’t recognize, a thick but faint white line from the base of his thumb to the base of his pinky. It looked like it once had been quite a nasty wound that had long since healed to insignificance. Suddenly I knew what to ask. This whirlpool of fury and helplessness wasn’t about the dead traveling partners, or at least not only about them. I met his eyes.

 

“How long has it been for you since the Time War?”

 

He started like I’d stuck him with a hot poker. His stance was so fierce that for an instant I thought he was going to leap across the table and attack me, then came a moment I was sure he was about to run out of the restaurant. Suddenly he crumpled. He looked blankly at his plate, shoulders slumped like an old man.

 

“Forty years,” came the barely audible reply. _So long alone? Oh, my poor Doctor,_ I thought. I remembered the rawness of my first Doctor’s grief that showed through from time to time: the crack in his voice when he’d told the Nestene Consciousness that he couldn’t save its homeworld or any of them. The fear and rage and guilt when we’d found that living Dalek imprisoned in a Utah bunker. This Doctor’s face, dry-eyed but twisted in heartache, was all of that multiplied by decades of solitude that had not offered a trace of healing. The losses of his travel partners were twisting knives in an already massive wound. For the first time I wondered if I had perhaps done as much good for my Doctor as he had done for me. It was more than I could stand to see my dearest friend (_my love_) hurting so, even if he didn’t know me. I left my place and scooted onto the bench beside him, wrapping my arm around his waist. My other hand grabbed a piece of chocolaisha from my truffle sampler place and offered it to him silently. He took it and ate. After a moment his ragged breathing steadied slightly.

 

“Doesn’t sound like the war ended any happier here than where I come from.”

 

He nodded, closing his eyes for a moment: “My people and my planet are gone. I’m the last of the Time Lords.”

 

“Did you ever tell anyone?” He shook his head.

 

“Hints. No more. Jabe already knew most of it, but we didn’t talk about it. It’s my burden to bear, no one else’s.”

 

“For a genius, you can be pretty thick sometimes,” I sighed. “Do you honestly think all the people you travel with and all the others whose lives you touch can’t be allowed to know _why_ you’re all Captain Broody? Do you think our stupid ape minds are too narrow to accept you if you do something that makes you seem less than perfect, like grieve or feel guilt?”

 

“It’s not like that.”

 

“Really? Coulda fooled me. You’re just hurting yourself, not helping anyone else. You may be the last of the Time Lords, Doctor, but you don’t have to be alone. I’m here.” I knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as the words left my lips. He stiffened and pulled away from me, nailing me with a look of anger, derision, and betrayal that shook me to my core. It was at least as bad as the way he’d looked at me after I tried to save my dad’s life and caused a paradox that nearly destroyed the world.

 

“You selfish, manipulative little girl. You dare to use the death of my world as an excuse to get yourself back in the happy time travel machine?” He had chosen his words to hurt, and he chose well. “Are you looking for someone to rip open the universe so you can get back to my double, or are you just a junkie looking for thrills from any source you can find?”

 

“No! I would never!” I protested. My eyes burned hot with tears right on the verge of spilling over and destroying my mascara. I felt small and disgusting as a maggot.

 

“Coulda fooled me,” he spat my phrase back at me. The worst part was that he spoke with a grain of truth. I wanted to heal him for his own sake, but I hoped that the best way to do that healing was to take me on the TARDIS, and I couldn’t pretend I didn’t want that for myself. I wanted to get to know him, and it had rapidly become clear that meant knowing his pain. So I pushed, trying to be like a doctor who had to rebreak an old bone injury to make it heal straight. A few ill-chosen words on my part made him think I was just trying to break down his defenses to let myself inside, and he justly enough chose not to trust a stranger who claimed that was precisely what he needed. My chance to be a healer was gone, as was my chance at a more lasting time with him. I wondered if my careless picking at his wounds had doomed him to another forty years in the wilderness.

 

“I’m sorry. God, I’m sorry.” My apology was met with stony silence. “I didn’t mean to say it like that. I just…I miss you, the other Doctor I mean, so much. We could tell each other anything. You’re so like him I keep forgetting that I’ve done nothing to earn that sort of trust from you.” He turned away and started poking his fork at the chocolate cake, not actually eating. I took a sip of my hot cocoa, but even the divine taste could not salvage the situation. The spark that had burned in my breast since the TARDIS key lit up sputtered and died. With a flat voice, I spoke again.

 

“Look, as soon as we finish this chocolaisha, take me back to Earth. Have your solitude. If you ever want some company, you know where in space-time to find me, but I won’t expect anything.” He nodded slightly. Giving up on him was like knifing myself in the gut, but the harder I pursued him now the faster he would retreat. I moved back to my side of the table and attacked my chocolaisha truffles. After a few moments the silence started getting to me. In a habit I picked up from my Doctor’s other regeneration, I started to babble.

 

“I’m actually living a really nice life on this Earth, even though it’s not the one I grew up with. My job at Torchwood is great. This one time, my mate Rickey–he works at Torchwood too–and I were sent to Prague to investigate some disappearances…” I launched into a string of very silly anecdotes about work. By the time I got around to “and then Rickey said, ‘You mean these alien trousers I’m wearing are ALIVE?’” the atmosphere between the Doctor and me had thawed slightly. Not enough to get so much as a smile for a story that usually got guffaws, but he was no longer staring daggers and I was no longer crying. All that stood between us and what was probably my last TARDIS ride was for the waitress (who had about as many arms as an icon of a Hindu goddess) to bring the bill.

 

“You! You ruined me! I shall destroy you where you sit as soon as you tell me how you got here!” hissed a very angry voice. The Doctor and I both turned to see an alien, human-like except for bright purple skin and an extremely pointy set of teeth, standing halfway across the restaurant.

 

“The promise of destruction doesn’t give me very much incentive to tell you that, does it? Now, remind me where we’ve met,” said the Doctor in his mock-cheerful voice. The alien gave him an annoyed look.

 

“I wasn’t talking to you, big ears. Rose Tyler, answer me!” Luckily, I recognized the alien. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the Doctor looking gobsmacked that for once he wasn’t the walking trouble magnet.

 

“Grishick. It’s been a while. Tell us how I ruined you, ‘cause I don’t remember doing that,” I said calmly, standing up so I could look him in the eye. Grishick, I recalled from working with him through Torchwood, was the sort who liked to give long monologs first and shoot later, if he still remembered what he was so worked up about.

 

“I was about to establish formal trade relations with your planet, which would have made me outlandishly rich. Then you, my supposedly trusty native guide, knocked me out and programmed my spaceship to take me out of the solar system. You neglected to notice, however, that my warp drive was broken. I had to travel under light speed, so it took nearly three thousand years to reach a planet with a decent repair shop. I survived in cold storage, but by the time I got here I’d been declared dead and my assets passed on to several generations of heirs. You bankrupted me!” He was shouting and sputtering so that flecks of spittle flew some rather impressive distances. Other diners, including the Doctor, looked at us with mild interest. I rolled my eyes.

 

“I saved your life, and this is the thanks I get? You wanted a meeting with the Queen before you would make any agreements, never mind that the royals are just around to give the tabloids something to talk about. Do you know how much secrecy protocol had to be violated to get you in there? I made your precious meeting happen, everything’s great, and then you grab one of the Queen’s corgis and eat it right in front of her, blood and fur everywhere. The guards would have shot about a hundred holes through you if I hadn’t knocked you out first. They would have imprisoned you until you forgot what the sun looked like if I hadn’t convinced them that we were less likely to cause an interplanetary incident if we just packed you on a ship heading away. You should be the one buying me a drink, not this lump,” I gestured at the Doctor, who gave a little wave.

 

Grishick, not one to take being out-talked lightly, roared and started to reach inside his coat, probably for a weapon. Without hesitation I grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be the Doctor’s plate complete with a bit of leftover chocolaisha cake, and threw. It smacked into his face, sending him staggering backwards and leaving a trail of chocolaisha down his cheek. He grabbed a mammoth bowl of ice cream from the nearest diner and lobbed it at me. I ducked, and it hit one of the heads of a the very muscular female alien standing behind me. Licking her lips (they were, after all, dripping with chocolaisha), she tossed a gooey pastry from her plate and threw it at Grishick. It hit, but spattered enough to dirty two other people. Within seconds the entire restaurant had erupted into a gigantic food fight.

 

It was just like the food fights I’d always dreamed of starting back in school, only in a nice restaurant with tablecloths and everything, plus a substantial portion of the participants who were clearly not human. Also, unlike my school cafeteria, all the food was some form of chocolaisa: cake, pie, cookies, brownies, danishes, ice cream, mousse, all sorts of chocolaisha beverages. The many-armed waitress had grabbed bottles of chocolaisha syrup from the kitchen and was squirting them willy-nilly around the room. Really, the only way it looked like my imagined school food fight was scale and messiness level. The dignified restaurant patrons were rapidly coming to resemble mud wrestlers, only tastier.

 

My antagonist, Grishick, was getting pelted with a substantial portion of the food, but despite the barrage he was still headed towards me. I wondered whether I had any chance in a physical fight with him and concluded that the answer was no. I’d seen what those teeth could do to a small, fluffy dog. Just then I felt a familiar sensation that sent thrills up my spine: the Doctor’s hand clutching mine.

 

“Let’s run!” he said, wearing his Here Comes Trouble smile. We ran, dodging with minimum success through a rain of food. A stream of syrup aimed at me left squiggles down my front from head to hip. A chocolate crème pie sailed past the Doctor, catching the edge of his protruding ear. A giggle I wouldn't have thought impossible ten minutes ago bubbled from my lips. Then we were out of the restaurant and running down the street. We kept running until it was clear that Grishick wasn't following, then I stopped and let myself laugh until my sides hurt. What an escape! Even the Doctor was chuckling. This was among the strangest days I've ever had. Not the very strangest, but even on the Rose Tyler scale this day was a whopper.


	5. A Bad Recompense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone takes a shower.

_ANTONIO: Will you stay no longer? nor will you not that I go with you?_

_SEBASTIAN: By your patience, no. My stars shine darkly over  
me: the malignancy of my fate might perhaps  
distemper yours; therefore I shall crave of you your  
leave that I may bear my evils alone: it were a bad  
recompense for your love, to lay any of them on you. -Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, II.i. _

 

It took quite some time, but I managed to regain my breath after all the running and mad laughter. The Doctor turned his chocolatey face and gave me my favorite grin, the impossibly large one that takes up his whole face and lights up the night.

 

“That,” he said, “was fan_tas_tic!”

 

My heart rang like a struck bell and broke. I had started to think this universe’s Doctor had nothing left but angst. Here was a flash of the joyful maniac I would follow to hell and back (more or less had, in fact) and consider every brimstone-scented minute the time of my life. I wanted to fling my arms around him, but I didn’t dare. I had no right. I _really_ wanted to lick the chocolate off his ear, although that I’m not sure I would have dared even with my Doctor. (After his regeneration, the Doctor would probably have been licking the chocolate from my face by now, but that put my face on equal footing with walls and mysterious pools of blood. That man would put his tongue more or less anywhere…that sentence came out rather dirtier than it was supposed to. Whoops.) _Fantastic._ One word echoed across two universes. This Doctor was the same as mine underneath those mountains of heartache, but I would never see him after tonight.

 

“In 900 years, I think that’s the first food fight I’ve been in. You seem to have quite the talent for attracting trouble, Miss Tyler!” he exclaimed.

 

“Yeah,” I shrugged, “I’ve been told I’m jeopardy friendly.” My good humor had broken, but I smiled at him anyway.

 

“I can see that. After all, you found me.” He gently squeezed my hand, which was still clutching his. My other hand reflexively brushed some crumbs off the shoulder of his jacket. We walked back to the TARDIS, hidden as usual in the only ugly alley in a lovely town. Right outside the ticket booth door, her surprised me with a question.

 

“You were quite close to my other self, weren’t you?” I nodded. I could have filled a book with my feelings about the Doctor, but a nod seemed safer.

 

“I…I spoke too harshly back at the restaurant. I don’t think you meant any harm,” he offered. I felt as if I had just removed an overly-tight corset, letting me breathe fully for the first time since his accusation. Living without the Doctor was hard, but I’d managed it fine for three years. Living with the knowledge that I’d hurt him and parted in anger…I don’t want to think about that.

 

“Thanks,” I said, gazing intently at him. How much had his mind changed in the food fight? I inhaled deeply, taking in the leather-musk-magic scent of this incarnation while I still could.

 

“I still can’t take you with me. I don’t want any more innocent deaths on my hands.” Damn. Not changed enough.

 

“I know what I’m getting into! I traveled with the other you for two years. I faced death hundreds of times. He protected me, but I also got really good at protecting myself. I’m even better now. Did you know Torchwood taught me how to kill a man with one hand?”

 

“I imagine that’s usually easier than killing the sort who has all his limbs.”

 

“Ha ha very funny. What I mean to say is that I’m hard to damage. ‘S not like my normal job is exactly safe, but I made a choice ages ago that I’d rather die for something worthwhile than work in a shop for fifty years and die anyway.”

 

“With your talents, the Earth needs you,” he said, changing tactics.

 

“I don’t belong to the Earth, not in this reality. It’s got plenty of support; I’m just a bonus. You, on the other hand, could use some company, and so could I.”

 

“No.” He spoke with such finality that the arguments died in my throat. I could not force my way onto the TARDIS if he didn’t want me, and I wouldn’t if I could. With a conscious effort I shook loose my hopes of staying with him forever. I chose instead to fix in my memory a perfect image of how he looked in the stillness of that instant: craggy face a study in contrasts between bright moonlight and deep shadows, a gob of chocolaisha crème on his ear and a spatter of icing in his cheek, his expression firmly set but his endless blue eyes saying something difficult to interpret that might have been regret.

"You've got chocolaisha on your face," I blurted. Of all the things I could say to try to bring across my feelings, that was perhaps the least effective. At least it made him smile just a little.

"So do you," he said. He reached out and wiped a some of it off my face, trailing his finger from my cheekbone past the corner of my mouth and down to my chin. I shivered slightly at his cool touch. To my astonishment, the Doctor stuck the finger in his mouth and licked off the chocolaisha rather more lingeringly than strictly necessary, keeping his eyes on me the whole time as if to see how I'd react. My lips parted slightly and my pulse quickened. The moment passed away as suddenly as it began. He turned abruptly and opened the TARDIS.

"I expect you'll want to shower before you leave. Help yourself to some spare clothes from the wardrobe," he offered, all light and business-like and not looking at me. Men are confusing at the best of times, but when the man in question is another species, and when that particular species is Time Lord…I just hoped the shower had plenty of cold water.

Everything in the ticket booth TARDIS was exactly where I expected it. Out of habit I used the bathroom off the bedroom that had been mine in the other universe, although it hurt to see that the room was decorated in the bland hotel-style it had borne when I first saw it rather than the exuberant pink walls and clutter of mementos I had added. As I tried to get the goop out of my hair, I heard another shower start up. The Doctor's bedroom and bathroom were right on the other side of the wall. For all the impregnability of its exterior, the TARDIS's interior walls were surprisingly lacking in soundproofing. I used to lie awake in bed listening to him in the next room. He didn't need much sleep, so even when he was in his room rather than the console room I mostly heard the sounds of pacing or fiddling on this or that with the sonic screwdriver. After his regeneration he had a tendency to talk softly to himself when no one else was around to receive the babble. On those occasions he did use the bed, I'd listen to the slight creaks as he shifted around (a restless sleeper in both bodies, apparently) and a warm knot would form low in my body as I contemplated how nice it would be if we could be on the same side of that thin wall. I'd thought I had all the time in the world, so I relished the sweet aching anticipation of unrequited love. I should have run down the hall as fast as my legs would carry me and had my way with him. Too late.

Now, I heard the soft slap of bare feet stepping into his shower, prompting all sorts of images and suggestions from my ever-optimistic hormones. I silently leaned my entire body against the shower wall that separated our bathrooms, wondering if he was aware of me, wondering if my other Doctor might be standing in a shower thinking of me somewhere beyond the white wall between universes. For all practical purposes, the two Doctors were equally inaccessible. The tile was hard and chilly against my thighs, my belly, my breasts, my face. With the shower water cascading over me, I couldn't have said whether or not I was crying.

Enough. If I kept wallowing in misery I wouldn't be able to face the Doctor with dignity. I might be shipwrecked in a strange universe and separated from my beloved, but I still had my family and Mickey/Rickey. That's a lot more than the Doctor had. I could stay strong until I left the TARDIS. Moping about my love and loneliness belonged in the privacy of my journal written back on Earth on nights I couldn't sleep (too many nights). Besides, this pose wasn't comfortable, and I still had chocolate in my hair.

As lonely as the shower was, being clean again still managed to refresh me. I dressed in jeans, white vest top, and a black hoodie with pink embroidered flowers around the cuffs, packing my black dress in a bag to launder at home. The wardrobe even supplied me with makeup, and I did my face up carefully, as if I were putting on armor. I wandered slowly to the console room, trailing my fingers along the walls and relishing the familiar hum of the living TARDIS. The Doctor was there already, running energetically back and forth to different controls. He looked up when I entered.

"Now that the hot water is entirely gone, could you hit the little switch over there for me?" All business with a touch of teasing sarcasm. I could handle business. Any more teasing could break my composure, so I didn't say anything to him. Together we went about the complex task of piloting a time machine. I wondered if he noticed how I could fit my movements around his and often anticipate what he needed, making the work into a dance. Was my skill impressive, or did other companions do this right away while only I had started out quite so awkward in my first trips in the other universe? I'd never know. Strangely, while the TARDIS responded beautifully to my touch, the Doctor kept muttering at it to stop being so difficult.

"What's this business about wolves? You aren't making much sense, old girl…. Look, we're going to London, and that's that," I overheard him whispering to the console. Out of the corner of my eye I caught him watching me furtively. Too soon, the TARDIS gave a strange popping noise and shuddered to a halt.

"Here we are. London, morning after you left. I've saved you a transatlantic flight," he said, scratching behind his ear and looking rather awkward.

"Err, thanks," I replied, staring at my feet and feeling even more awkward than he looked. Be brave a few more minutes, Rose, I told myself. I dragged my eyes upwards. "Doctor, I'm sorry. About busting in on you and acting like I belonged and bringing up things that were none of my business. I meant the best, but," I shrugged, "sometimes meaning something doesn't count for much."

"I understand," he told me softly. Suddenly I knew that I would never forgive myself if I didn't give in to my instinct at that instant. I crossed the distance between us and wrapped him in a hug. He was only stiff for a moment before returning the embrace. I clutched his coat and pressed my cheek against his chest to savor the steady, intricate beat of his two hearts. The side of his face lay against my hair. His grip grew firmer as the tension in his back seemed to ease slightly. We stood like that for a long while, locked in that embrace so familiar to me, so new to him, strong enough to support all the sadness of two universes. (I felt the strength. Did he feel it too, or did he only feel my single heart beating its weak way towards death? Sometimes I could read the Doctor like a book, but other times that book was written in a foreign language.)

"I will remember you, Rose Tyler," he whispered. I nodded into his chest. I knew (I hoped) he was telling me that if he ever felt like traveling with company he would think of me. It was as much promise as I could ask.

"This won't get any more fun if I wait longer," I sighed at last, willing myself to break the embrace but not quite managing. He pulled away from me and stepped back, his face a blank. I picked up my bag and walked beside him to the door.

"Goodbye, Rose."

"Goodbye, Doctor," I said, managing somehow to keep my voice steady. He opened the TARDIS door for me. I stared.

"That's not London," I stated the obvious.

"No. Definitely not." We stood side by side, gazing out at the vast expanse of red sand dotted with twisted shrubs and brittle grasses. Spires of rock rose occasionally into the sky. A small creature like a wallaby with purple scales squeaked at us and hopped away. Eventually, the Doctor added, "That popping sound right before we landed may have been the epsilon circuit blowing, which would have sent us off-course. Thing is, I just fixed that circuit last week, so it should have been fine unless somebody," he glared at the wall of the TARDIS, "sent a power surge through it to force a detour. I think the TARDIS doesn't want to go to London just yet." Other than mild annoyance at the TARDIS, he didn't sound nearly as upset as I would have predicted back in the restaurant. I decided against whooping for joy, despite the encouragement of a touch of mischief at the back of my mind that I recognized as the TARDIS presenting a rare naughty mood.

"Are those ruins over there?" I pointed at a spot on the edge of sight where the rocks were far too regular to be carved by normal erosion. The Doctor shaded his eyes and looked.

"I do believe you're right. Care to explore them?" he asked with exaggerated nonchalance.

"'Kay," I said, equally casually, but I knew my face betrayed my excitement. I beamed. He caught my eye and his grin expanded like a time lapse video of a bud unfolding into flower.

"Fantastic!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The adventures of Rose, Alt!Nine, and the ticket booth TARDIS continue in "Danger Shall Seem Sport," the next story in the Illyria series.


End file.
